I see that I haven’t shared anything that has been going on here since October. We’ve spent that time, mostly, immersed in the process of letting what we understood with our minds move into an understanding of the heart. This has been very painful, much of the time unspeakably so.

And at times we felt a lot of fear and anger–not at Ricardo’s Parkinson’s, but at the inflexibility of the province’s health care system in dealing with long-term care placements, and what the financial consequences might be for us.

But, in looking at these issues straight on and trying to understand them, we’ve been able, for now, to move past the anger and settle into the day-to-day of (somewhat) ordinary life. We’ve been helped in this by Ricardo’s having had a long stretch of good health with few setbacks.

And so I come to my bit of contentment for today’s post. I’m making a lap quilt for Ricardo, for now and for the future when he will have to leave home for long-term care. I’m using fabric from Japanese pajamas given to my daughter over the years by a dear friend of hers who travels often to Japan. As she wore them out, I saved the garments just on spec because I loved the beautiful fabric, and all these years later I decided that these fabrics would be the perfect basis for Ricardo’s quilt.

First I had to rip the seams, making flat pieces of fabric I could cut up. The piles on the table are mostly the pajamas, with a few other fabrics I was auditioning for possible use.

The photos here are opposite to the order I wanted, but I’ve spent as much time as I can afford in trying to make them come out right, so please excuse me. The picture of some of the blocks hanging on the wall represents about half of what will be the finished quilt, just to give you an idea of what the style will be. There will be a narrow red border around all the blocks, then a wider navy border. I’m just finishing sewing the blocks together, so soon I’ll have a photo for you of the completed top, before getting the sandwich of the backing, batting, and top ready.

And this represents my {happy} for today. I love to sew, and it helps me to a peaceful feeling of accomplishment. Must go for now! Thanks for reading my topsy-turvy posting! I’ll make time to check on the entries of others–they are always interesting.